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[Grumpy]

For those who don't follow the financial news with ref to the
motor industry, Ford has made a loss of nearly $9 billion in the
last 3 months. (Yes, that's 3 months, not 3 years.)

This shows the future of companies that rely heavily on sales of SUV's,
or Chelsea Tractors. The era of the gas guzzler has come to an end.
If the US goes into a prolonged recession, due to the current credit
crunch, Ford will run out of money by the end of 2009 and will go
into Chap 11 bankruptcy. Their only hope will be to ramp up
production of smaller European style cars and hope to gain
market share with them in the US. They are already closing 3
SUV production lines and switching them to smaller fuel efficient
cars.

SUV's are going to be pretty much worthless in the US shortly, some
used car lots are already refusing to take them in part/ex.
This will happen in the UK as well. So maybe best to think on
a bit if you are thinking of buying a gas guzzler with respect to
future resale value and how much capital you'll lose in depreciation.

General Motors and Chrysler are also in a bad way. General Motors
is already engaged in ramping production of their smaller European
models for sale in the US. If they don't get their act together soon,
they also will face Chapter 11 Bankruptcy 2009/2010, the same as
Ford.

See Link ref Ford.

http://www.markeidiotch.com/news/story/ford-swings-87-billion-loss/story.aspx?guid=%7B2C5792D6%2DB1B6%2D43D7%2DAC35%2DC8C3BA340EE8%7D&dist=TNMostRead

Have a nice day, you all!  

[philhoward]

Good news...Ford withholding moneys due was the reason my employer went bump last year.  Their response to Price Waterhouse Coopers was "We're Ford - what you going to do?"

I ended up about £4k out of pocket due to those tossers..

[Vamps]

Funny that though, all I ever see is Jap 4x4 double cab pick ups, no Ford or GM.

[philhoward]

Funny that though, all I ever see is Jap 4x4 double cab pick ups, no Ford or GM.

IIRC, doesn't the Toyota Tacoma outsell the F150 nowadays?

[albitz]

America is in deep trouble at the moment,another worry for them apparently at the moment is that a large percentage of their government bonds have been bought up by russia and china .from what i have heard ,if they decided to redeem them all in one hit the american economy would need to perform something close to a miracle to stop itself from collapsing.

[Kieran]

At least they will be cheap secondhand gas guzzlers out there

[markey mark]

At least they will be cheap secondhand gas guzzlers out there

yes but they will have a ford badge !

[Kieran]

Remove them and replace with Vauxhall badges

[Vamps]

Remove them and replace with Vauxhall badges

It's getting to the stage where they all look the same anyway.......

[Kieran]

True

[philhoward]

Americans go white you tell them we pay $10 a gallon...ok, our gallons are bigger, but it still shocks them!

They turned white when it hit $4..

[Bandit127]

Great that we only need to worry about rising inflation, taxes, cost of fuel and the sale of our nuclear enegergy infrastructure to a French company that make the owners of Cherbobyl look like professionals then.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE7DA113CF936A25757C0A961948260
Good old Blighty.  

[philhoward]

Great that we only need to worry about rising inflation, taxes, cost of fuel and the sale of our nuclear enegergy infrastructure to a French company that make the owners of Cherbobyl look like professionals then.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE7DA113CF936A25757C0A961948260
Good old Blighty.  

Please not 3 Mile Island en-la-Rhone??

[theolodian]

VW Golfs and Jettas are being offered on lease for $198/month.  It's not just the SUV's that aren't selling!  

[Grumpy]

General Motors figures out today for the past 3 months.

They lost $15.5 Billion including writedowns and impairment
charges.
$6.3 Billion excluding those items.

This gives a burn loss rate of approx $24 billion a year. Approx what
they have left in cash and credit lines.

Ref what I said earlier about crashing residual values of gas guzzlers,
note that this cost them approx $2 Billion in lease impairment
values in 3 months. So as said previously, although you can buy
gas guzzlers/ SUV's cheaply, be prepared for a massive loss in
capital value when you come to get rid.
This may or not be important to you.

http://www.markeidiotch.com/news/story/general-motors-quarterly-loss-tops/story.aspx?guid=%7B1D8F34E5%2D57ED%2D46E3%2D882E%2D16642A7155B4%7D&siteid=bnbh

GM really need to start selling their new Hybrid 'Volt' car and European
compacts in the USA pretty rapidly, or Chapter 11 bankruptcy
beckons. CEO, Rick Waggoner, realises this and is actively pursuing
this policy. Let's hope he gets it right, or we'll all be driving around
in cheap Chinese/ Korean/ Malaysian cars in the future.